31
Heat Pipe Preheater for Low NOx Catalytic Combustor--Thermacore, Inc., 780 Eden Road, Lancaster, PA 17601-4275; 717-569-6551
Mr. James E. Lindemuth, Principal Investigator
Mr. Donald M. Ernst, Business Official
DOE Grant No. DE-FG02-99ER82907
Amount: $100,000
In advanced gas turbine systems, sophisticated and expensive control schemes are required to coordinate between preheating burners and catalytic combustors, especially during startups and fast transients. This is one of the main obstacles to the commercialization of Low NOx Catalytic Combustion Technology. The Heat Pipe Preheater, a passive heat transfer device that is integrated into a catalytic combustor to extract heat from combustion exhausts and dissipate it to the compressed air for preheating, is capable of quickly responding to changing combustor conditions and self-adjusting according to combustion and preheating zone temperatures. The Heat Pipe Preheater’s passive and fast responses eliminate the need for expensive active control schemes and consequently improve the marketability of Low NOx Catalytic Combustion Technology. Phase I will design, fabricate and test a proportionally scaled, proof-of-concept Heat Pipe Preheater segment to verify the feasibility of the technology. The Heat Pipe Preheater segment will be 1/11th of full scale and capable of transporting 20kW of heat and sustaining a maximum temperature of 1,430°C. Also, theoretical models will be developed to simulate Heat Pipe Preheater Based Catalytic Combustor performance under various steady state and transient conditions.
Commercial Applications and Other Benefits as described by the awardee: Heat Pipe Preheaters should eliminate the need for expensive active control schemes/equipment and improve marketability of Low NOx Catalytic Combustion Technology. The technology also offers more NOx reduction by replacing NOx producing preheating burners with NOx free Heat Pipe Preheaters. Commercial applications include gas turbine generators, aircraft turbine engines, and industrial burners in such energy intensive industries as chemical, forest products, steel, petroleum refining, aluminum, glass, metal casting, utility, and general aviation.